Martyn Lloyd-Jones: Advice on What to Read

D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones:

My advice to you is: Read Jonathan Edwards. Stop going to so many meetings; stop craving for the various forms of entertainment which are so popular in evangelical circles at the present time. Learn to stay at home. Learn to read again, and do not merely read the exciting stories of certain modern people. Go back to something solid and deep and real.

Are we losing the art of reading? Revivals have often started as the result of people reading volumes such as these two volumes of Edwards’ works. So read this man. Decide to do so. Read his sermons; read his practical treatises, and then go on to the great discourses on theological subjects.

—D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, “Jonathan Edwards and the Crucial Importance of Revival,” Puritans: Their

Origins and Successors (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1987), 369-370.

Lloyd-Jones elsewhere explained the importance of this practice in his own ministry:

In my early days in the ministry there were no books which helped me more, both personally and in respect of my preaching, than the two-volume edition of the Works of Jonathan Edwards. . . . I devoured these volumes and literally just read and reread them. It is certainly true that they helped me more than anything else. . . . If I had the power I would make these two volumes compulsory reading for all ministers!